In a recent Baltimore Sun editorial, Dr. Homayoon Khanlou and Michael Weinstein, both of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, argued that less funding should be dedicated to HIV vaccine research so that more could go to HIV prevention and treatment. In response, the Sun (baltimoresun.com, 4/5) has published letters to the editor supporting vaccine research.
The first, written by Lisa Beyer, vice president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, argues that anti-AIDS drugs were once thought to be impossible to create, and yet today, after the investment of billions of dollars in research and development, “there are more drugs to treat HIV than to treat all other viruses put together.” Adds Beyer: “That is what focused science can achieve.”
The second letter, penned by the executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, Mitchell Warren, calls the original editorial “wildly off-base” and says it shows “a blatant disregard for both science and public health.” Warren says that the recent Merck AIDS vaccine trial failure did not represent the future of HIV vaccine research.
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